Deal on climate package left to EU leaders
LEIGH PHILLIPS
05.12.2008 @ 09:23 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Environment ministers from across the European Union met on Thursday (4 December) without reaching agreement on some of the thorniest issues bedevilling negotiations over the bloc's mammoth climate and energy package.
"The negotiations have reached a crucial phase," French environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo, whose country currently chairs the six-month rotating EU presidency, told reporters in Brussels.
There are still many issues in the climate negotiations that have yet to be thrashed out (Photo: Tom Jensen/norden.org)
"We have got 90 percent of the way there. The hardest points - the other 10 percent - are best left to the heads of state and government to conclude," he said.
But hiding within that 10 percent are some of the most recalcitrant sticking points between EU member states.
The issues are unlikely to sink the deal, but green groups fear that in order to get over the hump, the French EU presidency is willing to let the package be weakened substantially, all but sideline the input of the European Parliament and leave any final deal to be thrashed out by the heads of state and government next week at the European Summit.
Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, also in attendance at the meeting, put on a brave face, saying: "We have made such great progress," but nevertheless outlined the outstanding issues.
Worries that the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS) will result in the relocation of production and job losses - a process referred to as "carbon leakage" - remain a large stumbling block. The commission also said issues surrounding the Clean Development Mechanism are a battleground too - what part of EU-domestic emissions reductions can be pawned off to developing countries via the Kyoto Protocol's CDM architecture.
Mr Dimas added that a last obstacle to a deal was the monies that the EU will commit to the third world to assist them adapt to climate change.
Much of eastern Europe, led by Poland, which still depends for much of its energy production on coal - the dirtiest of energy sources - want special recognition of this fact and free allocation of emissions permits for their power generation sector.
Germany for its part, wants free allocation of permits for energy intensive industries, such as steel and cement. Heading into the economic crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel has turned from a climate package booster into one of its biggest critics, and she is backed in this by many German socialists as well.
Indicative of the lack of importance accorded the meeting was how ministers from Poland and Germany did not attend the meeting, setting deputies in their stead.
One potential compromise, loathed by environmentalists, would see the national leaders agree at the summit next week to a method of identifying those sectors at risk of carbon leakage and then award them free emissions permits.
Polish veto unlikely
Poland meanwhile is sending out the message that they believe they are on track to a solution.
On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters: "I think that we are close to a version acceptable for Poland ... a version that will allow us to avoid a veto."
Commissioner Dimas hinted on Thursday that some amount of money from revenues in the ETS could be reimbursed back to Polish households if the system proved to indeed raise electricity prices. More radical would be a delay of the ETS in Poland for some years.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy is set to visit Gdansk on Saturday and meet with the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Romania. The Poles have said they are expecting a "present" from the French leader at the meeting.
"There could not be a worse time for the EU to backtrack on the commitments that it made last year. The talk led by some recalcitrant EU countries is now all about competitiveness, protectionism and creating loopholes to avoid meeting climate responsibilities," said a coalition of green groups, including Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace and WWF, in a statement reacting to the morass.
"If the EU does not get its act together, the whole world stands to suffer the consequences," said the statement.
One environmentalist was spitting mad at how key issues had been sloughed off for heads of state to agree on - a level widely conceded to be closer to industry than the commission or the parliament and at which everything must be agreed unanimously.
"They're shoving everything under the carpet, that's clear," he said. "With the unanimity required, co-decision has become a joke. It's an affront to the parliament. I don't know why they don't stand up for themselves."
Following the European summit, the parliament then must approve the package as a whole on 17 December.